Anarchist group disrupts conservative church services in Lansing

An evangelical church on Lansing’s west side was the site of a major protest Sunday by the anarchist Bash Back! Lansing organization. According to a press account of the protest in the City Pulse, about 30 people joined in the protest of Mt. Hope Church, with approximately 20 of them protesting outside and in front of the church to distract security teams, while the rest went inside and disrupted the service with chants, a banner and throwing fliers at the congregation.

Andy, a spokesperson for the Lansing group, said the whole goal of the event was to reach youth. (Andy asked that Michigan Messenger not use his last name because he says he is getting threats of violence from “Nazis.”)

“Debrainwashing the youth that was our main goal. The flier is done from a Christian perspective being as mine and a lot of other people that were involved in this (have a) history is in the church. We were raised in evangelical churches like that one, or even that one in the case of some of us. We wanted to target the youth there and in the most effective way possible, tell them — at least plant the seed– that it’s okay to be queer. That it’s okay to come out.”

But the protest are drawing the condemnation of the right wing as well as gay rights groups. On RightMichigan.com, editor “Nick” tells the story of the protest, in graphic language. In the post, Nick calls the protest:

…coordinated, disgusting and repulsive attack on worshipers and the broader concept of the church itself…

The blog post has been picked up by other right wing blogs, including the blog of Young Americans for Freedom Michigan State University.

The Alliance of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students issued the following statement through programming director Justin Lippi this afternoon about the protest:

“While Alliance of LGBT Students Disagrees with Mt. Hope’s hurtful stance that homosexuality and transgenderism are sins, we categorically condemn the actions of Bash Back! which not only disrespected the congregation, broke the law and put people in physical danger, but are also not beneficial to the LGBT movement. Furthermore, we condemn any and all acts of violence against any person or persons.”

And while the right wing is trying to paint the protest as proof of that liberals will all act this way, Andy told Michigan Messenger in an email the following:

To that I would stress that we are not a liberal movement. We do not
believe in reform of the system (even radical reform), we believe in
actually liberation of all people, this to us means a complete dismantling
of any system that oppresses. Which is inherently every government. I
think liberals have and will continue to reject this action and our
politics in general. We are out side of the scope of liberal and
conservative. So, I would say to the church, don’t blame the liberals, we
are autonomous of their movement.

The flier the group distributed during the service can be found here.